The shower stopped in less than an hour, and the Whelpers were off again. While the kids used beach towels to dry off the interior of the convertible, Gerri passed around cans of Pepsi-Cola and snacks from the gas station vending machine. In vain Terry fiddled with the buttons on the car radio, trying to find a station that played soft rock.

The Whelpers were halfway down Card Sound Road when a blue pickup truck passed them the other way doing at least eighty. Without warning, something flew out of the truck driver's window and landed in the back seat of the LeBaron. Terry heard Jason yell; then Jennifer started to wail.

"Pull over!" Gerri cried.

"Easy does it," said her husband.

The convertible skidded to a halt in a spray of grass and gravel. The Whelpers scrambled from the car, checked themselves for injuries and reassembled by the side of the road.

"It was two guys," Jason declared, pointing down the road. "White guys, too."

"Are you sure?" asked his mother. The family had been on guard for possible trouble from blacks and Hispanics; a neighbor in Dearborn had given them the scoop on South Florida.

"They looked white to me," Jason said of the assailants.

Terry Whelper frowned. "I don't care if they were purple. Just tell me, what did they throw?"

Jennifer stopped crying long enough to say: "I dunno, but it's alive."

Terry said, "For Christ's sake." He walked over to the convertible and leaned inside for a look. "I don't see anything."

Jennifer cried even harder, a grating subhuman bray. "You...don't...believe...me!" she said, sobbing emphatically with each word.

"Of course we believe you," said her mother.

"I saw it, too," said Jason, who rarely took his sister's side on anything. "Try down on the floor, Dad."

Terry Whelper got into the back of the LeBaron, squeezed down to his knees and peered beneath the seat. The children heard him say, "Holy shit," then he leapt out of the car.